Exploratory Point Pattern Analysis for Modeling Biological Data

  • Authors:
  • Stelios Zimeras

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Statistics and Actuarial-Financial Mathematics, University of the Aegean, Karlovassi, Samos, Greece

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Systems Biology and Biomedical Technologies
  • Year:
  • 2013

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

Data in the form of sets of points, irregular distributed in a region of space could be identified in varies biological applications for examples the cell nuclei in a microscope section of tissue. These kinds of data sets are defined as spatial point patterns and the presentation of the positions in the space are defined as points. The spatial pattern generated by a biological process, can be affected by the physical scale on which the process is observed. With these spatial maps, the biologists will usually want a detailed description of the observed patterns. One way to achieve this is by forming a parametric stochastic model and fitting it to the data. The estimated values of the parameters could be used to compare similar data sets providing statistical measures for fitting models. Also a fitted model can provide an explanation of the biological processes. Model fitting especially for large data sets is difficult. For that reason, statistical methods can apply with main purpose to formulate a hypothesis for the implementation of biological process. Spatial statistics could be implemented using advance statistical techniques that explicitly analyses and simulates point structures data sets. Typically spatial point patterns are data that explain the location of point events. The author's interest is the investigation of the significance of these patterns. In this work, an investigation of biological spatial data is analyzed, using advance statistical modeling techniques like kriging.